Castanets / First Light's Freeze
Album: First Light's Freeze   Collection:General
Artist:Castanets   Added:Dec 2005
Label:Asthmatic Kitty Records  

A-File Activity
Add Date: 2006-01-01 Pull Date: 2006-03-05
Week Ending: Mar 5 Feb 26 Jan 22 Jan 15 Jan 8
Airplays: 1 1 2 6 4

Recent Airplay
1. May 23, 2013: Daydream Disaster
No Voice Was Raised, Evidence (A Mask Of Horizon, Distortion Of Form)
4. Mar 02, 2007: The Lunchbox
Into The Night
2. Apr 26, 2007: Finneman's Market
First Light's Freeze
5. Feb 28, 2007: I once got Canadian radio
A Song Is Not The Song Of The World
3. Mar 20, 2007: The Witching Hour (final show)
Good Friend, Yr Hunger
6. Sep 04, 2006: Finneman's Market
No Voice Was Raised

Album Review
Ben Wolfson
Reviewed 2005-12-19
Folk and country-inspired; communal campfire sounding. The singing is mostly sprechstimmoid. Big improvement on the first record, I think. If you like Espers, Tower Recordings, Jim White or the less noisy bits of Akron/Family, you'll like this. It's a bit further out than White; less so than Tower Recordings (though P. G. Six is similar).
Best: 2, 6, 7, 9, 11
1.Very brief ambient tones, pretty.
2.“Let's go outside in the murderous night”. Spare, haunted country-influenced song. Mostly just guitar, some rattly percussion in the mix, a little bit of backing vox.
3.Sort of a Tennessee Two beat, harmonized vox. Picks up the pace and insistence as it proceeds. Guitar solo and then keys come in, very nicely done.
4.Banjo and thumpy drums.
5.Abstract sound scribbles—trumpet and fiddle? Completely not confident in that identification.
6.Singing more conventional. Dark.
7.Chimes and guitar open. Wordless background singing; the main vocal melody's very strong, echoed on guitar. Drums come in halfway through; then the main melody's reprised on guitar and mandolin (or harp?). This is what Currituck Co. should have done instead of making Ghost Man on Second.
8.Another abstract interlude, this one's rather haunting; distortion, maybe an autoharp, unsettling background tones.
9.One of the least folky/country songs on the album. Starts off mellow, ends in a freakout.
10.Interlude.
11.The background here—which could be, in the main, a distorted trumpet or a guitar, and includes other instruments too—reminds me of nothing so much as the middle section of Scott Walker's “The Electrician”. Fluttery, watery, just plain pretty distortion and keys, some cello or bowed bass. This appears to be a love song.
12.Sounds like Smog. Specifically, like “Left Only with Love” from “Knock Knock”.
13.Ethereal instrumental, guitar, fiddle, percussion. The fiddle plays way up, sounds like above the bridge, hyperactively, while the guitar and percussion are much more laconic; the contrast is very effective.

Track Listing
1. (The Waves Are Rolling Beneath Your Skin)   7. First Light's Freeze
2. Into The Night   8. Evidence (A Mask Of Horizon, Distortion Of Form)
3. A Song Is Not The Song Of The World   9. No Voice Was Raised
4. Good Friend, Yr Hunger   10. (Migration Concentric)
5. (We Drew Uncertain Breath)   11. All That I Know To Have Changed In You
6. Bells Aloud   12. Dancing With Someone (Privilege Of Everything)
  13. Reflecting In The Angles